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I Formula Feed
| Mon, 07-07-2008 - 7:50pm |
I chose to formula feed my daughter. I love her with all my heart, and am a great mother (contray to what other mothers will say because I didn't BF). I gave my daughter the best 9 months of my life when pregnant...eating healthy, excerising, quit smoking, quit drinking, yada yada yada and I give her everything in this world now but yes I was selfish and formula fed and do not regret one second of it. I'm sorry that my husband, mother, sister can help with feedings and make a bottle themselves... I can go out for a night and not worry about having a glass of wine or I can go to the mall and not have to whip my boob out in the middle of the common area. And my daughter is extemely healthy and happy. I don't think Im going to hell because I formula feed nor do I feel I am a bad parent. My husband and I agreed formula was the way to go for us. I'm sure there are plenty of things BF'ing mothers do that other parents wouldn't agree with but that doesnt mean you should be crucified for it. I think other mothers should get off their high horse about bf'ing and realize its just not for everyone and you're not

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Jani
"Laughter is an orgasm triggered by the intercourse of sense and nonsense."
<< I just find it amusing when people insist that breastfeeding makes one so much healthier, or more intelligent >>
See thats where you are confused.
Could you please outline the mechanism by which breastfeeding caused your health difficulties and/or how formula could have prevented or lessened them?
I was under the impression that breastfeeding tends to reduce the likelyhood and severity of things like ear infections but I am always open to new information.
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<<I have had chronic pullmonary problems since childhood.
~*~ Catherine, mom to three grown men - Jason, Michael & Joshua and Granma to Christopher & Leia.
The really interesting thing, certifiablyc, is that you are insisting that people are saying that 'you are healthy' because they have said you would be even more unhealthy had you been ff. What some are pointing out is that had you been ff you would most likely be even more unhealthy than you already are.
a + b = c does not translate to a = c, which is what you are implying.
Also, genetics plays a part in the overall health of an individual. Given the health conditions you are describing I am going to hazard a guess that at least one person in your immediate family exhibits at least one of the conditions you mentioned or someone smoked like a chimney around you the entire time you were growing up, so it's even better that you were bf or you might not even be here to post and provide your anecdotal evidence.
You keep jumping over or dodging around the point.
Breastfeeding does not guarantee good health. Breastfeeding puts the person at the NORMAL level of risk for THAT person. Apparently YOUR level of risk was FAR WORSE than average.
Formula feeding puts a person at HIGHER risk than NORMAL for that person of health issues.
If you'd had formula instead of breast milk STATISTICS show that you'd have been even LESS healthy than you are now.
"So why should I expend the effort of continuing?"
How about expending the effort of reading what is written instead of reading what you want the words to say? You apparently WANT to see it said that breastfeeding = good health, guaranteed, period, full stop, so that you can call BS on it. Well, it WON'T be said, 'cause it isn't true.
I have a son that was not healthy despite being BF. He was allergic to every food I gave him, and I ordered in food from around the world. When the drs tested him he reacted to 74 out of 75 foods and the dr said he wasn't so sure about the 75th one. He reacted to food even the first time he ate it, even though to be allergic you are supposed to have it first then build up a reaction to it. He reacted to food in my diet, and I had to eat a very strict diet to keep him healthy. He was 18m old before I could find any food he could safely tolerate, and I had to rotate his foods so he didn't eat the same food too often, and he could eat nothing raw, not even a banana. It was still touch & go for many years. The drs thought he wouldn't live to 1y old, and when he did, they said he wouldn't live past 6y. He still lives a sheltered life at 20y old and will likely always have to.
Would he have been better off if I had fed him formula? Well, at 18m I gave him a sip of a hypo-allergenic formula, and he nearly went into shock. Likely, if I had fed him formula from birth he would not have survived. So Bf even with a life of struggle was better than not surviving at all.
I know you can't imagine your life any worse off if you had been formula fed, but with all your health problems, it is likely that you wouldn't have survived to tell us all that we are wrong and Bfing isn't perfect and did not prevent you from a life of struggle.
(Note: I am saying likely - not guaranteed. Of course I can't know, no-one can know 100%, but we can surmise, based on symptoms & history of a person)
~*~ Catherine
No matter what decision you make in your life, or your child's life - there will always be someone just waiting to tell you what a stupid idiot you are for doing so...
Some of my blogs:Life Begins... (miscarriage)
Frugal Baby Tips
4,700 Stories of Pregnancy & Birth over 44y old
Pregnancy Stories By Age - 43-56+yrs old!
You Can Get Pregnant in Your 40's
~*~ Catherine, mom to three grown men - Jason, Michael & Joshua and Granma to Christopher & Leia.
<<>>>
And this is exactly the point you are missing. NO ONE is saying you are or should be healthier than anyone else... friends, family, etc. No one else has your specific genetics. You are as healthy as *you* personally can be, considering your own personal genetics, your diet, and your environment, etc. Breastfeeding didn't do anything more than allow you to develop to your own normal personal physical potential based on the genetics you were born with. Unfortunately, your genetics dictated things like asthma and other health issues. Breastfeeding could not change your genetics, it is not designed to do that. What it did NOT do was put you at even more of a disadvantage based on your personal genetics. Basically, it gave you a normal level of health FOR YOU.
Breastmilk does not make people "healthier" than normal, it just makes them *normal* for their own genetics, period.
Breastmilk does not make you "smarter" than normal. It just makes you as intelligent as your own personal genetic make-up will allow... a *normal* level for YOU. You cannot compare that to anyone else, because everyone will have their own unique genetic level of "normal" intelligence. Each individual will have their own "normal" IQ POTENTIAL, whether it's an 80 or 100 or 120 or 140 ... meaning if everything goes normally, that's where they will end up. Formula use can DECREASE this potential by several points, so someone who would normally grow up to have a 125 intelligence might only end up with a 120. That might not seem like a lot, but it's comparable to the intelligence points lost to things like lead poisoning. The point is, who WANTS to lose up to 7 intelligence points they would otherwise normally have? Would you take a medication that could reduce your intelligence level by that much?
When you compare groups of people, you will end up with a certain percentage of people in certain ranges of intelligence... with the majority falling somewhere around 90-109 (around 50%) and the rest falling somewhere above or below that point. In studies of large groups of formula fed children, they consistently scored LOWER than average *as a group*. That means that they are not reaching their normal potential as humans.
So breastfeeding does not make an individual smarter than they would normally be... formula does not allow individuals to reach their normal intellectual potential because of all the things it is lacking.
<<< I can't even complete a round of golf any longer, and at my age I should be out there on the links three maybe four times a week. I can't walk from the middle of a parking lot to the entrance of a store without trouble. I don't even go to malls any longer because I can't walk and I find that my scooter is quite obtrusive to other mall patrons. >>>
I'm sorry about your condition, I do know people in similar situations... but those conditions are not something that can be "cured" by being breastfed. No one ever claimed that breastfeeding "cures" asthma, only that formula can make it more severe than it would normally be for THAT individual. On a scale of 1-10 if you're genetically programmed for an asthma level of 6, breastfeeding will give you a level of 6... normal for you. The same individual who is given formula may end up with a level of 7 or 8... higher than THEY, personally, would have normally had if they had been given a *normal* diet of breastmilk. If you were genetically programmed with an "asthma level" of 9, breastfeeding is not going to change that. Formula MAY have made it even worse than it is now, but breastfeeding certainly did not make it WORSE than it would have been. That's the point we've been trying to make. Not that you're the picture of health, but that formula would not have made your situation any BETTER, and there's a good chance it might have made it WORSE.
Sometimes life just isn't fair... at least breastfeeding starts you out without any extra disadvantages.
Stephanie
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